Emerald Darkness

by Cannon, Sarra

  He shut it and walked toward me. “I’m not going to argue about this, Lea,” he said. “I’m not going to let you go alone.”

  I studied his face. He wasn’t joking around, and I knew telling him to stay here was pointless. At the same time, I had already decided I wouldn’t be coming back here. I had no idea what kind of battle awaited me back home, and I didn’t want to put him in any danger, especially if my father did have a stone guardian protecting him.

  “I can handle this myself.”

  His blue eyes sparked and a slight smile teased his lips. “I don’t doubt that,” he said. “But you shouldn’t have to face this alone. I know you’re holding information back on purpose. I don’t completely understand why, but if the enemy we’re facing is greater than just one priestess in the Order, you’re going to need me.”

  I looked away and fiddled with my bag. I hadn’t let Harper and the others know the full extent of what had happened, because I didn’t want anyone to jump to conclusions. I wanted to find out what truly happened before anyone started accusing my father of being involved.

  “Aerden, listen, this is something I need to do on my own,” I said. “I have no idea what I’m going to find, but if it’s at all what I suspect or fear, this is going to be a very dangerous trip for anyone involved.”

  “All the more reason for me to come with you,” he said. “I know you can handle yourself, but it can’t hurt to have someone you trust at your side.”

  “The DLM needs you,” I said. “They’re going to need everyone helping to investigate each of the cities and rescue the witches who have gone missing. After what Harper and the others did for you, you owe them your loyalty.”

  I leaned down to retrieve my bow from under the bed. When I stood, Aerden wrapped his hand around my wrist. I lifted my eyes to his, my heart beating too fast.

  “The only person I owe my loyalty to is you,” he said, his gaze not letting go of me. “You have always been and always will be my princess, Lazalea. I left you once before, but I swear on my life, I will never leave your side again.”

  His words shook me to my core. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to me about loyalty with such passion in their eyes. I couldn’t quite catch my breath.

  “Aerden, I know you’ve been avoiding going back home,” I said, my mouth dry. “I don’t want to cause you any more pain.”

  “I can handle it,” he said. “I can’t avoid my homeland forever. I need to face what happened all those years ago. It’s time.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, my voice wavering.

  “I’m sure,” he said, his eyes locked on mine. “And no matter what you’re afraid we might find once we’re there, I want to be by your side when you face it.”

  I nodded. His hand still gripped my wrist and his skin was warm against mine, distracting me. These days I avoided touch, acting as if there was a barrier around me, the same way I had placed a wall around my heart. If I didn’t touch anyone or let them close to me, there was little chance they would get into my heart the way I had once let Jackson into my heart.

  But the constant pressure and warmth of his touch both excited and calmed me in ways I hadn’t felt in a very long time. The weight of his words and commitment gave me courage, and I knew in my soul that he was right. I did need him.

  “Jackson’s going to be pissed,” I said, letting a smile spread slowly across my face.

  Aerden smiled back, and even though he finally released his grip on my wrist, the memory of his warmth stayed with me for a long time.

  Only A Matter Of Time

  I stood outside Lea’s room for a moment before I knocked. I could hear voices inside and knew Aerden had followed her in there, but I was afraid to knock on the door. I knew what was coming, and I didn’t want to face it.

  But I had seen the look on Lea’s face throughout the meeting downstairs. Something inside her had shifted over the past few days, and even though I wasn’t sure of the details, I knew the end result. She was leaving us, and part of me wondered if she ever intended on coming back.

  I guess if I was honest with myself, I had always known it was only a matter of time. In a way, I was surprised she had stuck around here as long as she had.

  The only reason Lea had come to the human world was to be with me. I had come to rescue Aerden, but like everyone else, Lea had no real hope that we would ever be able to free him. She had come here to try to resurrect what she thought we once had, and I’d been too afraid to tell her it was never real.

  Aerden was the one who had always loved her. The heart stone she opened during our engagement ceremony was not filled with my love. It was his. He knew I didn’t love her, and he knew he could never have her. Who she married was a choice that was made by our parents long before we understood it. To spare her the pain of seeing a dim light inside that stone, he had placed his own love inside and disappeared.

  She had a right to know that, but it wasn’t entirely my secret to tell.

  Now that Aerden was free and I was engaged to someone else, Lea had no reason to stay in Peachville. Yes, she agreed to stay and help the Demon Liberation Movement, but I knew her heart was with the demons in the Northern Kingdom.

  And I knew my brother’s heart was with her.

  I finally knocked on her door, the weight of losing them heavy on my shoulders. The voices inside grew quiet.

  “Lea?” I said. “Is Aerden in there with you?”

  After a long pause, the door opened. Lea had a bag slung across one shoulder and her bow on the other. I could see the truth in her dark eyes and it slammed against my heart.

  She stepped aside and lowered her head as Aerden moved forward.

  “You won’t convince me to stay,” he said.

  “I’m not even going to try,” I said. “But I would like to talk to you before you go.”

  He and Lea exchanged glances and she nodded. “I’ll be downstairs,” she said. “Don’t be too long. I want to reach the borderlands before nightfall.”

  She left and closed the door behind her.

  “She’ll make a great queen someday if she wants it,” I said after a few moments of tense silence.

  “She’s so different now than the girl I remember.”

  The sadness in his voice made my heart tighten. He blamed me for that, and with good reason. Lea had loved me for our entire lives, and I had broken her heart.

  But what Aerden never understood was that he broke mine first.

  “We’ve all changed,” I said. “We’ve been through a lot.”

  My words hung between us, and I knew it was so much more complex than that.

  Yes, we’d been through a lot, but none of us more than Aerden. He’d been a slave to the Order and to Peachville’s Prima line for a hundred years. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like for him. Any time I tried to talk to him about it or get him to open up about his feelings since he’d been set free, he shut me out.

  He was so full of anger and regret and rage that the demon I’d known as my twin brother had all but disappeared inside that tangle of emotions. I wanted nothing more than to bring him back from the dead, but how do you resurrect someone who won’t even speak to you? Sometimes he acted like his freedom was more of a burden than a gift.

  Standing here, knowing he was about to leave, I wished I had the words to finally break through to him. To let him know how much I loved him.

  But there was this wall between us that I couldn’t seem to get past.

  I wanted to explain to him about all that had happened when he was stolen from us. I wanted to tell him I’d gone mad when he left, and that I couldn’t possibly have followed through on my promise to take care of Lea. Not with him being tortured and used by the Order.

  I wanted him to understand that my love for him was far greater than anything I’d ever felt for another one of our kind. But how could I say all that? There were too many words still to say. Too much time that had gone by.

  A
nd now we were being separated again. My heart almost couldn’t take it.

  When I finally lifted my eyes to him, he was staring out the window toward the back of the house. I joined him there and saw Lea in the garden, her dark braid falling down her back as she checked for something in her backpack.

  “Why don’t you tell her how you feel?” I asked quietly, well aware of the fact I was stepping on a minefield. “Now that I’ve given Harper my heart stone, don’t you think it’s time Lea knew the truth about the one I gave her all those years ago?”

  Aerden’s eyes closed and turned away.

  “She deserves to know the truth.”

  “It’s too late for that,” he said.

  “It’s never too late for true love,” I said.

  “You’re wrong.” The anger I’d become so used to hearing in his voice bellowed back at me. “Yes, I loved her once, but she was never meant for me. She never loved me even half as much as she loved you. And she never will. Telling her the truth now would only hurt her more.”

  “How can you know that?” I asked. “Neither one of us knows what might have happened if you hadn’t left that day. What if you had told her the truth instead of walking away? When I asked her for the stone back on Halloween night, do you know what she said to me?”

  Tears pushed at the edges of my eyes.

  Aerden glanced at me and shook his head.

  “She told me that seeing that bright light inside the heart stone was the happiest moment of her life. Knowing someone loved her that much was her greatest joy. Now she thinks that love was a lie, but it wasn’t. It was real, Aerden. She just doesn’t know that it was you.”

  He turned away from me, but I walked over and put my hand on his shoulder, spinning him back toward me. “If you had told her how you felt back then, that the love inside the stone was yours and not mine, how can you know she wouldn’t have chosen you instead?”

  He yanked away and put up his hand to warn me to stay back.

  “I made a mistake when I poured my own love into that stone,” he said. “I realize that now. Your engagement to her was going to happen no matter what any of us wanted, even Lea.”

  “She didn’t deserve to be lied to,” I said. “I never should have gone along with it.”

  “What you should have done was follow through,” he shouted, pressing a finger hard into my chest. He took several shallow breaths and then backed away. “You should have let me go. The two of you would have been married by now, and Lea would have been happy.”

  “How can you still believe that after all this time?” I asked him. “After everything you’ve seen and experienced, can you honestly tell me that you think anyone is happier when they’re living a lie? When they’re forced to live the life someone else decided they should live?”

  Aerden’s face crumpled and his jaw clenched. He balled his hands into tight fists and lowered his head. A tear rolled down his cheek. He started to turn away, but I grabbed his arm and turned him back to me, not letting go.

  “We can’t change the past. What’s done is done, Aerden. All we can do is try to move forward the best we can,” I said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make her happy, but I loved you more. Like it or not, you are a piece of me, and I couldn’t abandon you. I would rather be dead than live knowing you were being tortured by the Order.”

  He pulled his arm from my grasp and placed his fist against the wall, leaning forward against it.

  “And I would never have been happy married to Lea,” I said. “Obeying every command our parents gave us. Trust me when I tell you that she wouldn’t have been happy either, Aerden. No matter how much you try to convince yourself she would have. She would have lived her life knowing something was standing between us. Your heart was in the right place, but letting her believe the love inside that stone belonged to me has hurt her more than anything.”

  I moved closer to him. I didn’t want to argue. I just wanted him to understand. To open up.

  “Aerden, I don’t want you to go, but I understand why you need to follow her,” I said. “I need you to forgive me for coming after you and abandoning Lea. I need you to tell me you understand why I did what I did. There’s been a wall between us ever since you went free, and before you leave here, I need to know we’re okay. That we’re still brothers.”

  He turned, tears shining in his eyes, his lower lip trembling with tension.

  “I don’t know what you expect from me,” he said.

  “I just need some kind of sign that my brother is still in there somewhere,” I said in a whisper, barely able to hold back my own tears. “I need to know you’re going to be okay.”

  He shook his head and backed away. He grabbed his bag from the bed and opened the door.

  “You should have let me go,” he said. “I love you, Jackson, but you should have just let me go.”

  He stepped through the door and with each sound of his footsteps on the stairs, my heart broke just a little more.

  I’m Ready

  I hesitated at the bottom of the stairs and glanced back toward Lea’s room.

  I knew I was being a jerk to my own brother, but it was too hard to face it all. I pushed back tears. I refused to let those emotions rise to the surface, because whatever sorrow was locked deep inside terrified me.

  I was afraid that if I ever started talking about it, the pain would swallow me whole.

  I hated myself for the brisk tone I had taken with him.

  He was my twin brother, after all. The only family I had left who gave a damn about me. He deserved better.

  I cleared my throat and hiked my bag higher on my shoulder. I desperately wished I could find the words to tell him I understood what he had done for me. I may have been angry with him for abandoning the Shadow World and for leaving Lea behind, but I also knew he had sacrificed all of that for me. I wanted him to know how much it meant that he had risked his life to save me when everyone else had given up hope.

  But I wasn’t ready.

  The pain was still too raw, and the rage I felt every time I thought about the Order and what they had taken from me was sometimes the only thing keeping me alive.

  The anger was easier to feel than the pain of regret.

  Someday, I hoped I would have the courage to tell Jackson about those years I spent in slavery, and how grateful I was that he’d saved me. But there was a part of me that believed everyone would have been better off if they’d simply forgotten I existed. He would have married Lea and taken the throne. They might have been happy together. Safe.

  His words echoed in my head, but I pushed them out. I needed to hold onto what I believed, because anything else was just too scary to face right now.

  Lea met me on the front porch.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” she asked. “A lot has changed about our world since you were last in the north.”

  A shudder ran down my spine. I was willing to follow Lea wherever she needed to go, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about going home for the first time in what felt like forever.

  “I’m fine,” I said, sounding more sure than I really felt.

  Everyone joined us outside to say goodbye.

  I held onto Jackson for a long moment, feeling the weight of words I couldn’t say between us. “I’ll see you in this world or the next, my brother,” I said.

  “Come home soon,” he said, his eyes filling with tears.

  Lea and I made our way through the gardens and past the old shed. When we reached the edge of the woods, I turned and glanced back at the house, not knowing if it would be weeks or years before we would return, but hoping that someday, I would see it again.

  I felt a strange attachment to this place. Some of the others had been living here for a few months or years, but I had been living on this estate for over a hundred years. Even though I’d been brought here against my will, this had become my home.

  I had no idea what to expect on the other side. I wasn’t the same demon I was a hundred yea
rs ago, and from what I’d heard, the Shadow World had endured great change as well. I’d been to Harper’s domed city a few times, but I hadn’t been back to my true homeland in the north since the day I was taken.

  But it was time. I’d avoided facing the truth for way too long. It was time to venture out and see if I still had what it took to be a real warrior after all these years.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Lea asked.

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  “Come on.” She touched my shoulder. “We have a long journey ahead of us.”

  I nodded and followed her into the woods, toward the patch of white roses along the banks of Brighton Lake—our portal from this world to the place of my ancestors, where my past awaited.

  It’s Happening To Me

  The house felt so quiet and empty. Mary Anne and Essex left for Chicago shortly after Lea and Aerden made their way to the Shadow World. Courtney was sitting upstairs with Sophie, trying to restore the girl’s power, but she was having a difficult time. Courtney was great at restoring power when a witch had used it organically, but when power was stolen using dark magic, it could be much more difficult to bring it back.

  I just hoped it wasn’t impossible.

  Guilt gnawed at me. I was the one who had brought Sophie back to stay with Eloise in Cypress. After losing her family, there was nowhere else to go where she would be safe, but I hadn’t realized just how dangerous Cypress might be for her.

  The fact that the emerald priestess had used the poor girl to bring a message to me broke my heart. It wasn’t fair. Sophie had done nothing to deserve such torture.

  I prayed she would be okay.

  I’d been pacing the room as Courtney tried to heal the girl’s power, but Courtney had eventually asked me to leave, saying my emotions were interfering with her concentration.

  So I had come downstairs to the kitchen to make coffee.

  It should have been morning by now. The sun should have been coming up and the group should have been gathered here in the kitchen for breakfast.